Lost Art Press

Working Without a Workbench

Posted on by fitz
Traditional shop in miniature. This workbench scene, owned by tool collector John Sindelar, shows a complete, functioning shop. But what if you don’t own a bench?

The following is excerpted from “The Anarchist’s Workbench,” by Christopher Schwarz. The book is – on the one hand – a detailed plan for a simple workbench that can be built using construction lumber and basic woodworking tools. But it’s also the story of Schwarz’s 20-year journey researching, building and refining historical workbenches until there was nothing left to improve.

Along the way, Schwarz quits his corporate job, builds a publishing company founded on the principles of mutualism and moves into an 1896 German barroom in a red-light district, where he now builds furniture, publishes books and tries to live as an aesthetic anarchist. Oh – and the PDF of the book is free (see the first sentence at this link.)

There’s only one reason that the cheap-o workbench industry exists. And that’s because people think they need a workbench to build a workbench (or are truly delusional and think it will be fine for furniture making).

So many woodworkers I’ve met have spent $200 to $500 on a bench that isn’t worth the BTUs to burn. The things wobble like a broken finger. The vises hold like the handshake of a creepy vacuum salesman. They are too lightweight for even mild planing tasks.

You don’t need one of these benches to someday construct a “real” bench. In fact, I build benches all the time without the assistance of a workbench. It’s easy. Start with sawhorses. Glue up the benchtop on the sawhorses. Sawhorses + benchtop = ersatz bench. Now build the workbench’s base on top of that ersatz bench. Put the base and the benchtop together. You’re done.

If you want a temporary workbench until you build a “real” workbench, there are ways to get the job done with just a little money and a little frustration. This brief chapter seeks to give you some options.
I know that some of you will insist on buying something as soon as you anoint yourself a woodworker. It’s an instinct we’re trained into as consumers. Here are a few things to put in your shopping cart instead of a cheap workbench:

  • Buy an industrial steel packing table with a hardwood top. You can get these from many, many suppliers (McMaster-Carr is one). These feature a heavy welded steel base and a wooden top that’s maple, if you’re lucky. These metal tables don’t rack like a cheap workbench and cost less (way less if you find a used one). You can screw thin pieces of wood to the top as planing stops so you can plane the faces of boards and legs and the like. And get a large handscrew clamp to stabilize boards when planing them on edge. These packing tables don’t come with any vises, of course, but you can fix that with your credit card.
  • Buy a couple bar clamps (you’ll need clamps no matter what) that are long enough to span the width of the top of the packing table. Screw a 4×4 below the benchtop right at the front edge of the top – this will allow you to clamp your work to the front edge of the benchtop so you can work on boards’ edges and ends.

That’s one solution. How about a simpler approach?

  • Use your kitchen cabinets, kitchen table or dining table as the workbench. You can clamp planing stops to the tabletop (you’ll need a couple F-style clamps for this). Don’t forget to buy a large handscrew clamp to help stabilize boards when planing them on edge on the tabletop.
  • For working on edges and ends of boards, buy a commercial Moxon vise, which you can clamp to any tabletop or countertop. This vise will let you work on the edges and ends of boards. Even after you build a “real” workbench, you’ll continue to use the Moxon and the handscrews.

Is that still too much money? Do you have a public park nearby?

  • Use a picnic table. Drive nails or screws into the top to serve as planing stops. With a picnic table you get both high and low working surfaces. You can drive some nails into the picnic table’s benches to act as a planing stop and use them like a Roman workbench.
  • Buy a couple big handscrew clamps (every woodworker needs these anyway). Clamp or screw these handscrews to the picnic table so they work like vises so you can work on boards’ edges or ends.

Here are other time-honored solutions I have observed in the wild.

  • Take four pieces of 3/4″ x 24″ x 96″ CDX cheap-o plywood and screw them together face to face to make a 3″-thick benchtop. Screw this benchtop to a used metal desk. The old metal desks that populated schools, warehouses and government offices are ugly, cheap and widely available. They are almost all 30″ high. Add a 3″-thick benchtop and you are in the right height range for most Americans. Some of these desks have MDF desktops. Some have sheet metal tops. Either way, you can screw your plywood benchtop to the desk. Bonus: The drawers give you tool storage. Add workholding as above.
  • Conscript an old dresser/bureau. This is a three- or four-drawer cabinet for storing clothes. One 19th-century book I read showed how to turn this into a workbench. Attach planing stops to the top of the bureau/dresser. For sawing, keep it simple – use 5-gallon buckets as sawbenches (thanks for that tip, Mike Siemsen). You also could clamp a Moxon vise to the top. The lower drawers are for storing tools. The upper drawer can catch sawdust (not my idea – it was mentioned in the book).

The Apocalypse Workbench
When I teach or demonstrate woodworking on the road, the venue is occasionally luxurious and other times it’s more like “Lord of the Flies.” I’ve showed up at woodworking clubs where the workbench on offer was a folding table with metal legs and a particleboard top.

After years of encountering this problem, I learned to travel with an emergency kit of things that allowed me to work without bursting into sweat and tears in front of an audience. Here’s the kit:

  • Two large handscrews
  • Two 36″ bar clamps
  • Two F-style clamps (usually with 12″ bars)
  • Thin strips of plywood, usually 3″ x 24″ and in two thicknesses: 1/4″ and 1/2″
  • Small clamping pads of scrap plywood, to prevent denting my work when I pinch it
  • A few softwood shims
  • A couple simple bench hooks for sawing.

This kit has converted many desks and tables into somewhat-functioning workbenches. The handscrews and bar clamps act as face vises. The plywood scraps can be made into planing stops for planing with the grain or across it. And the F-style clamps can clamp my work – or other clamps – to the tabletop.

To be sure, I’m always happy to return home to my workbench. But until I find a way to fit it in an airplane’s overhead compartment, this kit has become a way that I can work almost anywhere.

You’ll find more books and videos on workbenches in our store here.

LAP Open Wire, July 20, 2024

Posted on by fitz

Update: Comments are now closed (thought Chris still might answer later, as needed). Join us again for Open Wire on August 10.

Wally and I are in the shop all day to work on 10 Shaker trays (because someone feels guilty for stepping down from their neighborhood house tour committee and thus agreed to make thank-you gifts as self-imposed penance) and for Open Wire AMAAW&C (Ask Me Anything About Woodworking & Cats).

You know the drill: post your (succinct) queries in the comments field below, and we (Wally and I) shall do our best to answer. Christopher might also pop in with answers from time to time…though I hope he’s spending the day having a grand time with Lucy and friends in Germany, and not paying attention to the internet.

Comments will close at around 4:45 p.m. (Eastern).

And a reminder of the Open Wire dates for the remainder of the year (when both Chris and I – and no doubt Wally – will be in the shop):

August 10
September 14
October 19
November 16
December 14

– Fitz


The Short Of It

Posted on by kalevogt
Chris’s photo from his current class in Munich, Germany.

I woke to a text this morning from Chris: “Found this tip for making our carving vises lower.” (See above.)

“Put the base on the underside. Works great. Might be helpful for you.”

Even though he’s off teaching in Germany, he’s still looking for ways to improve our shop here in Covington.

It’s no secret that I’m the most vertically challenged person in the shop (with Megan just a few inches taller). Megan’s two benches are 30″ high; the other six are 33″ and 34″ – and because I want the larger surface and good window light of the Holtzapffel (34″ high), this forces me to finagle myself into some awkward positions when performing certain tasks.

When building my first chair with Chris, I had block planed only half of my first long stick against Chris’s carver’s vise before my shoulder nearly gave out. Chris quickly corrected this by bringing the low Roman bench into the shop from the back room. Using my body weight, I propped the long stick against the Hulot block with my chest to plane. Instant relief.

So needless to say, I was elated to wake up to this little spark of ergonomic hope from Chris. I was eager to give it a go.

I mounted the carver’s vise to my bench. First with the base on top, in its typical location. Then with the base underneath. I measured the height of the base beforehand out of curiosity. 1-3/8″. Could it really make that big a difference?

Block planing a short stick with the vise base in its usual location on top of the bench.
Block planing the same stick against the vise, this time with the base located underneath the bench.

Now the difference in the photos may not look dramatic to you, but I truly could feel a difference. The ability to lower my hands nearly 2″ allowed my shoulders to relax. This immediately relieved tension and allowed my arm muscles do most of the work.

I also noticed the stick’s placement against my body. With the base located underneath the bench, the stick was able to sit lower on my chest, nearly against my belly. Lowering the stick’s gravity and having the stick land in an area that has more cushion than my sternum was more comfortable overall.

I know what you’re thinking and sure, this trick may not be the be-all and end-all solution to short-person-on-tall-bench carver’s vise issues. But I think this is a great start. My shoulders will be thanking me for this technique after planing seven long sticks.

Note the vise handle on the right making contact with the bench.

There is one problem with this arrangement, however. Because the vise is flush with the benchtop, the handle used to tighten the jaws bumps into the bench. You have to have the handle hanging fully off the edge, which limits the vise position.

All in all, though, I’m pleased with this simple modification. I plan to keep my vise in this position while working to continue feeling it out and work out any kinks along the way. What do my fellow shorties think?

– Kale Vogt

‘Drawing Salve’ – a Physician’s Thoughts

Posted on by fitz

When Chris Williams was visiting from Wales, he extolled the virtues of “drawing salve” – an ointment that pulls splinters out of one’s hand or what have you. And I’ve heard the same praise from other friends from across the Atlantic – the stuff is certainly more popular there than here. So what is this stuff, and does it actually work?

Christopher Schwarz bought some, got himself a splinter (possibly on purpose?) to find out. He reports that it did indeed help to express the bit of wood that was lodged too far beneath his skin to remove it with tweezers. What I don‘t know is how long it took for that to happen – and might it have happened in the same time span without the salve application?

We also don’t know is if there is any scientific proof that this stuff works, so we asked our friendly medical expert, Dr. Jeffrey Hill, to weigh in. He’s the author of “Workshop Wound Care,” an emergency room physician and an avid woodworker (and gardener). I’m sure he’s had plenty of his own splinters (almost certainly not on purpose), and removed more splinters from others than most of the people reading this. Below are his thoughts on drawing salve.

The term “drawing salve” somehow conjures impressions of both comfort and trepidation. Is it a soothing medicinal ointment that has been healing boo-boos since the times of Galen and Hippocrates, and is still around due to centuries of successfully treated patients? Or is it snake oil, still around because someone can make a buck or two off it? As with most things in life, the answer is probably: it depends.

A good first question might be: why is an article on medicinal ointments showing up in a woodworking blog? Well, working with sharp objects, we all tend to get nicks, scratches, and – often most maddeningly – splinters that seem to only get more painful as time goes on. In my book, “Workshop Wound Care,” I cover approaches to removing splinters. The basic approach is to first determine the direction in which the splinter fragment is oriented, take some sharp, pointed tweezers, grasp firmly, and pull with axial traction (pull in the direction the splinter is oriented).

Push the splinter in the same direction it traveled in, and there isn’t additional pain. Push it in the opposite direction, and you’ll feel it.
An 18-gauge needle can be used to enlarge the splinter opening. Then use tweezers to pull it out in the correct direction.

If this is successful, and the splinter is wholly removed, you’re likely in great shape. Just wash the wound, maybe cover it with a bandage, and move on with your day. If, however, some tiny bit of the splinter remains (maybe it was too small to grasp initially or it broke off under the skin surface), you might be in for a painful couple of days as your body reacts to the foreign invader that breached the protective shield of your skin. In response to the splinter, your body sends inflammatory cells to the site to try to wall it off and kill any bacteria or fungi that might have hitched a ride on the piece of oak.

If all goes well, the inflammatory cells stream in and destroy any bacteria and fungi. The splinter is, however, far too big for a macrophage’s mouth, so the body and this inflammatory process will slowly push the splinter out past the skin. If things don’t go well, the bacteria win the day, besting the inflammatory response, and forming an abscess (perhaps more commonly known as a boil) around the splinter that will eventually need to be incised and drained. Whether things go well or poorly, the inflammatory process a splinter causes is a painful one.

Enter the drawing salve.

Drawing salves (and salves in general) are not one monolithic thing. They are, at their base, an ointment (a thick viscous liquid) often supplemented with chemicals with varying degrees of real or purported medical benefits. One should use appropriate caution and reason in interpreting the stated medical benefits of these preparations. Because these salves often get classified as cosmetic products, they may not undergo the rigorous testing or standards required of medications (in the eyes of the Food and Drug Administration). The FDA, in fact, specifically cautions against salves with potentially corrosive ingredients (graphic images warning at that link) or salves that claim to be able to treat or cure skin cancer, moles, warts or boils.  Even salve preparations containing known medical benefits (such as the ichthammol discussed below) should be used with caution and careful attention to how your body is responding. Should your symptoms of pain and redness worsen, or should you develop fever, pus draining from the wound or streaking redness from the wound, you should, of course, seek the care of a medical professional.

The 10-percent ichthammol salve is the one Chris tried.

Ichthammol, or ammonium bituminosulfate, a common ingredient in drawing salve preparations, is derived from sulfur-rich shale oil and has theorized antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory properties. It has a weak recommendation by expert consensus for the treatment of the terrible skin condition Hidradenitis Suppurativa (subtext here is that this means there’s no good evidence of its benefit, but smart people suggest it, so we sometimes do it). There’s no direct evidence that it would help get a splinter out of your body more quickly. However, its inclusion in a drawing salve makes sense from a pathophysiological standpoint. It has a sticky, thick consistency ideal for inclusion in an ointment where the goal is to hydrate and soften the skin. Its likely antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory effects might lessen the pain associated with the process of expelling the splinter from the body and may lend a hand in the eternal battle of the human immune system vs. bacteria. If the skin is soft and hydrated, it should be easier for the body to push out the tiny splinter fragment. And, if the inflammatory response (which is often overly robust) is held slightly in check, it should lessen the pain associated with having a sliver of oak under your skin.

So what’s the verdict on drawing salves? Are they snake oil or helpful, healing ointments? Should you slap them on every splinter you have and save yourself the pain that comes with pulling one out with a sharp pair of tweezers? They may have a benefit for those splinters too small to pull out, or those splinters that fracture and stay under the surface of the skin as you try to pull them free. In general, the best course of action is to get the splinter out as soon as possible, but if you can’t, a drawing salve (like ones that contain ichthammol) might help the body rid you of the splinter (and probably will make the process less painful).

This one smells nice. I might try it on my cuticles (the lid says its good for dry skin).

Turning Tools

Posted on by fitz

The following is excerpted from Peter Galbert’s “The Chairmaker’s Notebook.” Whether you are an aspiring professional chairmaker, an experienced green woodworker or a home woodworker curious about the craft, “Chairmaker’s Notebook” is an in-depth guide to building your first Windsor chair or an even-better 30th one. Using more than 500 hand-drawn illustrations, Galbert walks you through the entire process, from selecting wood at the log yard, to the chairs’ robust joinery, to applying a hand-burnished finish.

Turning is a form of carving, and as such, there are many similarities to the tools you might use in standard carving, although the sharpening geometry is different. Whenever my turning skills seem to let me down, I often look to the shape and condition of my tools. The correlation between well-tuned tools and turning success cannot be overstated. I usually see this when I hand a well-tuned tool to a student who has been struggling with a poorly tuned one. The improvement is usually immediate.
This chapter covers the tools that I find most helpful in turning and the way I maintain and use them.

Tool Condition
New turners often underestimate the dulling effect that cutting will have on the tools. Turning tools show a distinct change in their usefulness as they dull. The dull tool will resist taking a light cut. The extra pressure required will tend to increase vibration while limiting the range and fluidity of motion. This is a recipe for a bad experience.

Most modern turning tools are made from high-speed steel. High-speed steel retains an edge longer and is less prone to losing its hardness during grinding. The downside is that high-speed steel is more difficult to get as sharp as regular high-carbon steel. But for me, the extra edge life is worth it. High-speed steel encourages grinding because it isn’t damaged by overheating until it reaches red-hot. If it does get red-hot, take that as a sign that you are being too aggressive. Let the tool cool (don’t quench it in water because this stresses high-speed steel) and, as remedies, lighten your grinding pressure and perhaps dress the wheel.

Fig. 13.1 The dulling effect on turning tools.

Many production turners conclude their sharpening process at the grinder. They use a light touch and frequent grinding to keep a sharp edge. I like the idea of this because it encourages grinding and sharpening in general. It stresses getting back to work instead of fussing with honing. But I hone most of my tools after grinding to get the edge as smooth as I can to leave a scratch-free surface on the work.

The dulling effect can be difficult to imagine; after all, sometimes you use the tool for only a minute or two. That’s hardly a problem with a plane or a chisel. But would you ever consider carving hundreds of linear feet with a carving gouge between sharpenings? Many turners ignore the length of their cuts and do just that. Imagine a 2″-diameter round spinning at 800 rpm; after 30 seconds of cutting, more than 210 linear feet have passed against the edge! Of course, by using different parts of the cutting edge, the tool can go longer between sharpenings. But for the new turner, focusing on getting one part of the tool to cut is usually tough enough. So tool maintenance becomes even more imperative.

Oftentimes a slight burr or a damaged edge on a tool won’t just leave a dull spot, it will send the tool skittering down the work or chew it up. This is especially evident when using the skew. When entering a V-notch or any cut where the skew starts cutting immediately upon contact, the slightest deformity on the edge will prevent the tool from taking a bite.

Also, when the skew gets dull, taking a cut when the tool is presented straight on to the work becomes more difficult, so the turner usually shifts the handle far to the side to get more of a slicing cut. This makes it tougher to resist the force of the turning piece. Because the support for the tool is too far to the side, the skew is easily dragged down the work, resulting in a catch.

Fig. 13.2 The position of the skew is important in order to maintain control.

One essential tool that is most often neglected is the tool rest. A pitted or dinged-up tool rest will make smooth turning nearly impossible, and most new turners assume the problem is with their technique. A well-polished, smooth and waxed tool rest is essential to good turning. I take a smooth file to my tool rest and hold it perpendicularly as I draw it along, taking a fluid cut. After the surface is level and free of defects, I polish it with stones or fine sandpaper. Then I wax and buff it. The tool should glide easily. Any tools that have sharp corners, such as parting tools and skews with rectangular cross sections, should be eased with a buffer or sandpaper.

Fig. 13.3 A smooth and polished tool rest is essential.

Turning Tools
As with most woodworking, it is easy to confuse having more tools with having more ability. More important than having lots of tools is knowing when and how to use them. Talking about tool choice and shape can be contentious in turning circles, much like discussing politics at a holiday dinner, but here is my take.

My basic turning kit contains a 3∕4″ roughing gouge, which does most of the heavy shaping; a 1∕8″ diamond parting tool for sizing diameters; a 3∕4″ oval skew for finishing all of the surfaces except the coves; and a 3∕8″ detail gouge for getting into coves and roughing out beads. The size of these tools can vary with personal preference and the scale of turnings that you are making. Getting the most out of each one and limiting the number of times that you switch tools helps to achieve consistent results.
With these four tools I can perform all of my turning tasks; more importantly, by limiting my collection, I keep all my tools in top condition with ease and know exactly which tool to turn to at each step.

Fig. 13.4 Basic turning tool kit.

I also use a couple of other tools that make my life easier (I’ll mention those as we go), but to make these chairs, the four core tools more than suffice.

The techniques you use at the lathe will dictate the shape of your tools’ edges. Every turner has favorite shapes; I am no exception. I’ll share my angles and shapes below, but keep in mind that the key to turning tools is the degree of sharpness and maintaining flat bevels. Any rounding over of the bevel will encourage you to over-rotate the tool to engage the cutter, which makes the tool difficult to control. To aid with the flat bevels, I use hollow grinds on all of my turning tools. The only exception is on the inside of the gouges, where a slight rounding can be tolerated.

For all of my sharpening, I like to keep the process fast and simple to encourage me to do it. Ensuring that sharpening is fast and easy is vital to actually stepping away from the lathe to do it.
Further information on the techniques in using these tools is in the Turning Practice chapter and information on the lathe and its accessories can be found in The Chairmaker’s Workshop chapter.

The roughing gouge
I use a 2″ gouge for turning blanks to round and a 3∕4″ gouge for roughing out my shapes. The larger gouge isn’t necessary, but it does make roughing more comfortable.

Before I reshape a new gouge, I polish the inside to remove any milling marks. I use a diamond cone-shaped hone, sandpaper on a dowel and diamond paste on a dowel to polish the flute. I grind a 35° bevel (or so) on my gouge. Just as important as the angle and condition of the edge is that the profile is straight. This keeps the cuts fluid and predictable. If the edge is crowned, rotating the tool during cutting will advance or retract the cutting edge, which adds another variable.

While grinding the gouge is possible to do freehand and with a simple tool rest, I use a jig to get consistent results. The set-up time with the jig is quick and doesn’t deter me from grinding.

Fig. 13.5 Sharpen a roughing gouge.

Once the bevel is ground, I use small diamond-impregnated paddles to hone the bevel, then I remove the burr with the diamond hone. Sometimes I turn the burr from the inside of the flute with a leather strop.

This isn’t a finishing tool, so I don’t go too far with the honing. I always like to keep the flat at the edge small to prevent rounding during honing. I hone only three or four times before going back to grinding.

The diamond parting tool
I like a diamond-profile 1∕8″-wide parting tool. The tool is widest at its cutting edge, which reduces binding, and the tool’s small kerf reduces vibration. I don’t hone this tool because I use it only for sizing diameters, and I grind it too often for honing to be practical. To grind it, I don’t even set up a tool rest. I shoot for about a 50° inclusive angle. First, I set the tool on the top edge of the tool rest and lower it until I make contact with the heel of the bevel, then I lower the tool on the wheel until it makes full contact. I repeat this for both sides, taking care to keep the edge at the widest part of the tool’s spine and straight across. When I have turned a burr, I stop grinding and tap the edge into a softwood block to knock the burr off and get back to turning.

Fig. 13.6 How to grind a diamond parting tool.

The oval skew
I prefer an oval skew, which seems to move more fluidly and doesn’t ding up my lathe’s tool rest. It’s a personal choice. I sharpen it at 30° inclusive (15° on each side) using a standard tool rest on my grinder. I don’t have any trouble grinding it this way, even though the shaft of the tool is an oval. I simply focus on keeping the edge horizontal; once it is hollow-ground, it registers on the wheel. I also shape the edge to a subtle curve. I like the exceptionally light cut that this curve allows, plus the toe and heel of the edge are somewhat pulled back, making catches less likely. I achieve this curve by pivoting on the tool rest while grinding.

Fig. 13.7 Grind and shape the oval skew.

It’s important to keep the two bevels ground equally. Once I’m satisfied with the grind, I hone the tool by pulling it on my stones just as I would a chisel. If the edge is curved or you are using an oval skew, you will roll the tool slightly to make sure that the entire edge is honed. Don’t confuse this with lifting the tool so that the back edge of the hollow grind loses contact. This is the worst result and will round the cutting edge over, dubbing it like a drawknife. Having a flat facet behind the cutting edge is essential to good skew technique. I never strop this tool, and I hone it on my finest stone in between turning each chair leg to keep it at peak sharpness.

When the facet behind the cutting edge gets wider than 1∕16″, I hollow grind again.

The detail gouge
I first polish the inside flute of the detail gouge (as I mentioned above) before regrinding it to a fingernail profile with a commercial jig. The jig comes with instructions for grinding the correct shape. For a long time, I avoided investing in a jig to make this grind, but after using one, I realized that my results doing it by simply rolling the tool on the tool rest while swinging the handle side-to-side did not give as consistent a result. I usually resist sharpening jigs, but I’ve found the consistent results worth it in this case.

The shape of the curve at the end of the flute should be even. I grind the detail gouge at 35° and finish the honing the same as with the roughing gouge. I keep this tool in top shape to reduce chatter and the chance of catches. Like the skew, this tool performs best when most of the bevel is made up of the hollow grind, so I grind again after only a few honing sessions.

Fig. 13.8 Sharpen a detail gouge.

To those new to turning, there are many details to consider, such as the speed of rotation, the size of the workpiece, the heft of the lathe and the details to be turned. Tool condition is one variable that you can always control. To achieve this, you must become proficient at the grinder. In the last 15 years, I’ve had the same iron in one of my favorite spokeshaves, but I’ve replaced most of my turning tools at least once. While they aren’t cheap enough to think of as disposable, I never confuse their cost with the value of a pleasant turning experience.

In addition to the turning instruction in “Chairmaker’s Notebook,” Galbert offers instruction through the video “Spindle Turning for Furniture.”